It is really incredible how these geniuses @ Columbia discovered and understood that war is bad. They like the Brockster are just too infatuated with themselves. The "I am better than you" theme just drips from this incredibly boring drivel.

So this guy wrote this worthless piece. Yet no one ever remembers him? It sounds like to me he was not simply lurking introvertedly in the shadows.

And this was 1983. What does this clown think the anti-war protesters kids of the 60's were all about. Each generation of academic know it all's it seems is so freakin' narcisstic that they think they are wiser than anyone before.

If you like your Prez . . . A very bad year for Mr. ObamaNEW YORK DAILY NEWSSunday, December 29, 2013

President Obama’s second inaugural conveyed a hunger to lead.

“We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect,” he said. “We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.”

Only 11 months later, a term that began with heady pledges and apparent momentum is in wreckage. Confidence in Obama has sunk like a cinder block hurled into the East River.

The embarrassing showing centers on his bungled implementation of Obamacare, raising doubts about its very viability, and extends to disastrous international zigs and zags that have sapped U.S. credibility among allies and foes. Call it the very worst year of this presidency.

Over and again in 2009, Obama promised: “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it.”

Meaning: Efforts to extend coverage to the 40 million or 50 million Americans without plans would not disrupt life for the vast majority one bit.

They are 11 words that will go down in history most charitably as reckless spin, far more likely as a brazen lie, because this year, 4 million Americans got cancellation notices out of the blue.

Example: Deborah Persico, a 58-year-old, self-employed lawyer and two-time Obama voter who supported the health-care law, then found her policy cancelled, and only far more expensive policies available on new exchanges.

She told PBS’s “Newshour” that a new plan would cost her $5,000 more a year.

Why? Persico’s explanation: “The representative told me to look in the booklet that they had sent me, and I looked in the booklet. And in that booklet is a list of services that the ACA covers. Well, I have every one of those services, except maternity coverage and pediatric care.

“Now, I am 58 years old. The chance of me having a child at this age is zero. So, you know, I ask the President, why do I have to pay an additional $5,000 a year for maternity coverage that I will never, ever need?”

And that was just one piece of a nightmare rollout. HealthCare.gov, the engine that makes the new law work by letting the uninsured shop for plans, had just about the most screwed-up debut of any website in the history of the Internet. State exchanges were little better.

The Obama administration projected a half-million signups in the month of October alone. The President is now likely to celebrate jumping over that bar by year’s end, with fears that no matter how well the website eventually works, the broad public may not buy what Obama is selling.

Little wonder popular support for Obamacare ended the year at just 35%. Sixty-two percent of the American people now oppose a law that, especially in the early years, was supposed to deliver great benefits at low costs.

Adding salt to the wound: Obama has little to offer for the slow-motion crisis of joblessness that continues to squander human potential.

A 7% unemployment rate and monthly job creation now in excess of 200,000 conceals a labor participation rate — meaning, the percentage of working-age Americans who are an active part of the workforce — of just 63%. That’s near a generational low.

Obama can explain the problem. He can excoriate Republicans. But he cannot actually do anything to change the reality on the ground, and that is the ultimate measure of a President.

There are times when a President’s global stature buoys his standing at home. Not now.

As a civil war raged in Syria, fueled by the blistering brutality of Bashar Assad’s regime, Obama has looked worse than disinterested. He has seemed indecisive, if not bamboozled.

In 2012, the President had laid down a famous “red line” on chemical weapons. If they were used, there would be serious consequences. Read: American military consequences.

They were used. Women and children were killed as if they were insects. The commander-in-chief hemmed. He hawed. He punted to Congress, which balked. The Russians rushed in with a plan to dismantle the chemical weapons program; it may or may not work.

To this day, the Syrian murderer keeps killing his people.

On Iran, we’ve seen a similarly deflating pattern. The President has repeatedly promised that a nuclear-armed Tehran regime, which would fund terrorism with impunity and threaten Israel profoundly, is unthinkable.

Yet after punishing sanctions were at last bringing the regime to heel, Obama blinked and buckled — lifting some of them in exchange for the hollow promise of a six-month enrichment freeze.

Not least, but last, the administration failed a test with implications both at home and abroad:

After a thief of American secrets made off with thousands upon thousands of classified documents, Obama could not seem to credibly explain the surveillance powers the U.S. has wielded for years.

In a technologically complex landscape in which Islamist terrorists are plotting to kill, it is necessary for the nation to maintain an elaborate and sophisticated foreign intelligence apparatus.

But the President has acted haltingly as, month after month, the leaks have revealed the unimagined powers and practices of the National Security Agency. His potent powers of persuasion failed him, and us.(more at link)

Vladimir Putin said -- off the record:"Negotiating with Obama is like playing chess with a pigeon…. the pigeon knocks over all the pieces, shits on the board and then struts around like it won the game."

It is good to have false claims debunked. Still there are quite a few other questions about his education that weren't asked or answered.

The birth certificate question was always a non-starter. His mom was a US citizen from Kansas. Couldn't she give birth anywhere in the world and her viable fetus becomes a citizen? It was the way they dodged the question that led people to think something else was there.

The pains that the administration has gone to differentiate between core al Qaeda and all of these splinter groups:

It's not only an excuse, a way to explain his way out of why he has failed on all these issues; it's also a demonstration, a shocking demonstration of his strategic shallowness. You know, it's the example of, you know, it's not the Lakers. The whole strategy of al Qaeda as explained by al-Zawahiri and Obama bin laden was to establish regional and local insurgencies to attack the Arab states who they saw as acting in the interest of the infidels, starting with Saudi Arabia. The whole idea was local insurgencies with a global perspective. I think Obama still to this day after half a decade doesn't understand at all who we are and who he is up against in the war on terror.

Norway is one of the most prosperous countries in the world. One might think we would send someone there there as our Ambassador who knows quite a bit and wants to learn more. Instead the President picked a Greek American, bumbling bundler. Norway is not impressed. http://www.thelocal.no/20140123/next-us-ambassador

The President, who has pissed off allies far greater than Norway, could not care less.

The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and 213th Amendments to the Constitution, and to the unceasing vigilance of agents of the United States Handicapper General. - Kurt Vonnegut, 1961

Stephens goes on to describe America under the equality policies that President Obama will describe tonight.

"Happily, none of this harmed the economy in the slightest. Higher minimum wages have "no discernible effect on employment" ( Schmitt, 2013). High marginal tax rates have no effect on productivity and business creation (Piketty-Saez, 2011). "..."the average height of NBA players for the 2007-08 season was just under 6 feet 7 inches. The average American male is 5 feet 9 inches. Patently unequal, patently unfair. ... demanded that the NBA establish an average-height rule that would require each team to offset taller players with shorter ones."..."More controversial was the Grassley-Gowdy De-Ivy Act of 2018, requiring all four-year colleges, public or private, to accept students by lottery."

The empty suit gave an empty speech, widely called "forgettable". It didn't inspire a lot of comment on the board.

I was disappointed that he didn't use the speech as an opportunity to announce approval of the Keystone pipeline. That would be reaching to the middle. It would constructed largely with union construction jobs. Republicans would have applauded. Democrats use oil and gas. Elite liberals like to jet around. Public safety would be enhanced. He probably has to approve it at some point. Maybe he would have energized a second look at his other proposals.

Instead it was just the anti-constitutional rhetoric, if I can't do this with congress, I will do it alone. By 'year of action' he is referring to actions that kill more jobs and make energy less affordable to young people, blacks, Hispanics, women and children.

I inherited this and I inherited that economic problem from the previous administration, he keeps saying http://www.democrats.org/issues/economy_and_job_creation, yet the White House's own website says the last economic expansion ended exactly as Democrats including Senator Obama took majority control of congress.

“The more than eight million new jobs our businesses have created over the past four years.”

- the number of jobs in the economy still is about 1.2 million lower than when the recession began in December 2007

“A manufacturing sector that’s adding jobs for the first time since the 1990s.”

- the number of manufacturing jobs is still 500,000 fewer than when Obama took office

“Our deficits — cut by more than half.”

- The 2009 figure... reflects the impact of decisions, such as the $800 billion stimulus bill, enacted early in the president’s term. The United States still has a deficit higher than it was in nominal terms and as a percentage of gross domestic product than it was in 2008 and a debt much greater as a percentage of the overall economy than it was prior to the recession.

“Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled.”

- Close readers of the president’s speeches might have noticed an interesting shift in the president’s rhetoric. Just in December the president gave a speech on economic mobility in which he three times asserted that it was “declining” in the United States. But earlier this month, renowned economists Raj Chetty, Emmanuel Saez and colleagues published a paper based on tens of millions of tax records showing that upward mobility had not changed significantly over time. The rate essentially is the same now as it was 20 years ago.

“Today, women make up about half our workforce. But they still make 77 cents for every dollar a man earns. That is wrong, and in 2014, it’s an embarrassment.”

- when such differences are accounted for, much of the hourly wage gap dwindled, to about 5 cents on the dollar.

“More than nine million Americans have signed up for private health insurance or Medicaid coverage.”

- no one really knows how many of the 6.3 million are in this expansion pool — or whether they are simply renewing or would have qualified for Medicaid before the new law. Indeed, the number also includes people joining Medicaid in states that chose not accept the expansion. The private insurance numbers — about 3 million — are also open to question. The troubled federal exchange counts people as enrolled if an individual has selected a plan, but it does not know if a person enrolled and paid a premium because that part of the system has yet to be built.

Fact checking Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers in her response:

“Last month, more Americans stopped looking for a job than found one. Too many people are falling further and further behind because, right now, the president’s policies are making people’s lives harder.”

- [True] but the decline in the labor participation rate started well before Obama.

No he is not a radical in sheep's clothing. Just political grandstanding by right wing nuts. (heavy on the sarcasm)And we keep hearing what a nice guy he is. If I hear O'Reilly say one more time he doesn't doubt Obama's good intentions..... I keep thinking how is someone who is a serial liar, serial deceiver, bully, a nice guy. Oh but he cares about the po' is always the response. It is his goals that matter not how he gets there.

****The Soul of the Obama Administration

Mona Charen By Mona Charen February 14, 2014 3:00 AM

Few have ever heard the name Debo Adegbile. He's President Barack Obama's nominee to head the civil rights division of the Justice Department.

A few months ago, his nomination would have been a non-starter — there is more than a whiff of radicalism in his past. But we are in a new world. Sen. Harry Reid is now absolute monarch of the Senate. Republicans are largely irrelevant. They cannot offer amendments to legislation. They cannot filibuster. I suppose they can write letters to the editor, and march outside the chamber wearing sandwich boards.

Before the Reid invocation of the "nuclear option" eliminating the filibuster, Adegbile would have been considered too controversial. But now, the administration can have its head on nominations.

Adegbile is a passionate advocate for racial quotas in hiring and university admissions, and also urges that employers not be permitted to do background checks on potential hires — presumably because more African-Americans have criminal records than other applicants. He has encouraged the president to nominate judges who recognize that "ratified treaties" are the law of land. Well, no argument there, but he goes further. Adegbile wants judges who will decree that "customary international law" is the law of the United States as well, asking for God only knows what mischief. Who would decide what "customary international law" is? By what authority would it be imposed on Americans? Investor's Business Daily reports that Adegbile supports George Soros's campaign to create a new "progressive" constitution. If that doesn't make the hair on the back of your neck stand up, you're not paying attention.

It was Adegbile's role in the case of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal that incurred the wrath of Justice Department employees though. The union representing FBI agents, which rarely expresses itself on nominations, along with the Fraternal Order of Police and other law enforcement groups, have written to Attorney General Eric Holder to protest Adegbile's nomination. Carl Rowan Jr., a former deputy U.S. marshal, FBI special agent and chief of police, wrote: "He isn't the first questionable nomination made by a president who ... seems drawn to those with radical backgrounds, but this one is an open slap in the face to everyone in law enforcement."

Abu-Jamal has long been a poster boy for the radical left in America. His fine speaking voice (he had been a radio host), long dreadlocks, Muslim moniker (he was born Wesley Cook), radical memberships (in the Black Panthers and black liberation group MOVE), and admiration of Mao Zedong made him irresistible to the Ed Asners, Jonathan Kozolses, National Lawyers Guilds, Michael Moores and NPRs of the world. But until this administration, most mainstream liberals would have steered clear.

Adegbile revealed a great deal about himself by choosing to have the NAACP Legal Defense Fund join the campaign to defend Abu-Jamal. There are many miscarriages of justice that cry out for redress, but Abu-Jamal's 1981 conviction for killing 25-year-old Philadelphia policeman Daniel Faulkner is one of the most litigated in American jurisprudence. The verdict was reviewed or allowed to stand by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, and the U.S. Supreme Court, among others, over the course of more than 30 years.

On Dec. 9, 1981, at about 4 a.m., Faulkner pulled over a driver named William Cook (Abu-Jamal's brother) for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. Cook threw a punch at Faulkner, who then hit Cook with his flashlight. At that point, four eyewitnesses said that Abu-Jamal, who had been across the street, fired at Faulkner hitting him in the back. Though wounded, Faulkner fired back at Abu-Jamal, hitting him in the chest, before falling onto his back. Abu-Jamal approached the wounded officer and holding his gun 18 inches in front of Faulkner's face, fired the shots that killed him.

Ballistics confirmed that the bullets that killed Faulkner were from Abu-Jamal's gun, found with him at the scene.

Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death, but decades of litigation and agitation on his behalf delayed the sentence. He has claimed ineffective assistance of counsel (though at one point he represented himself), racism by the judge, racism in jury selection — the usual gamut. In 2011, prosecutors announced that they would no longer pursue the death penalty.

Every defendant deserves a defense, of course. But Abu-Jamal has had a celebrity lineup of lefty lawyers. That Adegbile wanted to join their ranks is a sign of his sympathies. That Obama believes Adegbile can get confirmed by the neutered Senate is a sign of the times.

To find out more about Mona Charen and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.

Foreign policy neophyte Barack Obama once again made a bone-headed pronouncement about world affairs, this time addressing the violence in Ukraine. "[W]e're going to be watching closely and we expect the Ukrainian government to show restraint, to not resort to violence in dealing with peaceful protesters," he said Wednesday. "We've also said we expect peaceful protesters to remain peaceful." He added, "[T]here will be consequences if people step over the line." Unfortunately, everyone knows that Obama speaks loudly and forgets his stick, especially when the nation in question is in any way associated with Russia's Vladimir Putin, which Ukraine's government is. Just like his "red line" with Syria, this latest warning is huff and bluster that will only weaken U.S. standing in the world.

President Barack Obama greets Father's Day luncheon guests including members of Youth Guidance’s Becoming a Man (B.A.M.) program, in the State Dining Room of the White House, June 14, 2013. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

President Obama will announce a $200 million commitment from nine foundations Thursday afternoon to bolster the lives of young men and boys of color.

The funding is part of a larger initiative from the White House to bring private businesses, non-profits and local governments together to intervene in key moments in the lives of young black and Hispanic men to ensure they stay in school and eventually train for and get good jobs.

As Yahoo News first reported, the cause will be a major focus of Obama’s—and the first lady’s—even after he leaves office. "I think it’s something that's deeply personal to the president and first lady,” said Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to the president and the Obamas’ closest friend from Chicago. “I’m sure their commitment to this initiative will be a lifelong commitment. This is not something they simply want to do while he’s in office — it will continue.”

The president personally ordered his senior staff to come up with this new “My Brother’s Keeper” initiative in the wake of the shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin two years ago. Obama—who was criticized by civil rights leaders for avoiding race-based initiatives and conversations while in office—was deeply moved by Martin’s death, and tasked his staff with creating a holistic, research-based approach to helping young minority boys succeed and avoid violence.

The president will create a new inter-agency “My Brother’s Keeper Task Force” headed up by Broderick Johnson, the cabinet secretary and assistant to the president. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Attorney General Eric Holder, Labor Secretary Thomas Perez and other senior officials will be personally involved in “My Brother’s Keeper,” according to Jarrett.

Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City who started and funded an initiative in the city aimed at young black men, will join the president for the 3:45 p.m. announcement of the program at the White House Thursday, along with business leaders including former NBA star Magic Johnson. The White House initiative is in part modeled on Bloomberg’s, and seeks to intervene in the lives of boys at key points: by providing pre-kindergarten education, lifting third-grade reading proficiency, leading schools away from “zero tolerance” disciplinary policies that kick misbehaving students out of school, and convincing businesses to train and hire young men of color.

It’s still unclear just how broad the initiative will be, beyond the $200 million non-profit investment. Jarrett told reporters Wednesday that the White House is still signing on private businesses, and does not have a final number for how much they have committed to “My Brother’s Keeper.” The White House hopes corporations will pledge to mentor and hire young minority men.

And some of the foundations that are involved in the effort were already planning on making investments in young minority men before the White House got involved. Robert Ross, the CEO of the California Endowment non-profit, said his organization had already pledged $50 million over seven years for its “sons and brothers” program, which aims to reduce school absences and suspensions among young black children, and boost their third grade reading proficiency levels.

But Ross said that having the president involved in the issue will be “a huge injection of rocket fuel” for the cause. The president’s use of the bully pulpit could be a game-changer for Ross and others who work in this space, he said.

Ross met with the president and other foundation leaders last November to talk about the plan. Obama told them that he was personally inspired by Martin’s death to improve the lives of young men of color.

“There really was something spiritual and personal for him about what is happening to young men in this country, and he really wanted to do something real about it,” Ross said. “I certainly felt energized by that.”

Young black men persistently lag behind other groups in high school graduation rates and employment, and, as White House officials point out, they are six times more likely than their white peers to be murdered.

"My Brother's Keeper" is one part of Obama's larger plan to tackle issues facing the African American community in his second term, the president told civil rights leaders in a meeting last week. Obama will also push Congress to restore the part of the Voting Rights Act struck down by the Supreme Court last term and to pass a law banning racial profiling by law enforcement. The Justice Department is also pushing through criminal justice reforms without Congress' help, such as urging prosecutors not to use mandatory minimums against non-violent drug offenders and encouraging prisoners sentenced under old, racially discriminatory crack laws to apply for a new clemency program.

There is this archaic social mechanism from long ago that actually was very effective in socializing young males into productive members of society.

It's called heterosexual marriage. It actually involved a man and a woman in a socially and legally recognized monogamous pair bond. The male actually resided in the home and took part in raising the offspring to adulthood.

Then again, there is no opportunity for graft and government jobs for democrat connected rent seekers, so never mind...

Barack Obama: “This has been a secret project we’ve been working on for a long time." Private researchers working with the Pentagon, classified, maybe, not really, ha ha.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77pnVFLkUjM

The fact of the matter is what the president is doing this weekend in Florida is essentially what the president would be doing if he stayed back at the White House,' Earnest told reporters traveling with Obama. (golf)

We Won't Do What No One Wants"We are not going to be getting into a military excursion in Ukraine," Barack Obama proclaimed this week in an interview, a sentiment echoed during a second questionnaire: "Obviously, you know, we do not need to trigger an actual war with Russia." Hot Air's Ed Morrissey notes the curious element of these remarks: "No one wants it [war], no one would approve it, and for a couple of really good reasons -- we have no national interest in who governs Crimea, and an attempt to start a war there would make Dieppe look well-considered. It's in the Russian’s back yard. So why bother saying it at all?" Because, Morrissey continues, "Obama has an annoying habit of attempting to present his critics' arguments in his own fantasy reductio ad absurdum constructs that end up bearing no resemblance to the actual criticisms, all to paint himself as the voice of centrist reason." Obama's straw man doesn't change the fact that, especially when it comes to foreign policy, he's just an empty suit.

They didn't see a competence problem during Cash for Clunkers, Solyndra, Russian reset, the Queen sent Obama speech videos - in American video format?! Norwegian ambassador who doesn't know the capital? Susan Rice promoted? Fast and Furious??!!

If we had a competent media people might know whether or not thew administration was competent.

They didn't see a competence problem during Cash for Clunkers, Solyndra, Russian reset, the Queen sent Obama speech videos - in American video format?! Norwegian ambassador who doesn't know the capital? Susan Rice promoted? Fast and Furious??!!

If we had a competent media people might know whether or not thew administration was competent.

The Dissing of the PresidentThe world is treating Obama like another failed American leader.By Bret StephensMarch 31, 2014 7:36 p.m. ET

I've never liked the word diss—not as a verb, much less as a noun. But watching the Obama administration get the diss treatment the world over, week-in, week-out, I'm beginning to see its uses.

Diss: On Sunday, Bloomberg reported that Hasan Rouhani named Hamid Aboutalebi to serve as the ambassador to the United Nations. Mr. Rouhani is the Iranian president the West keeps insisting is a "moderate," mounting evidence to the contrary notwithstanding. Mr. Aboutalebi was one of the students who seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in 1979.

Here's the kicker: The State Department—the very institution whose diplomats were held hostage and brutalized for 444 days—will have to approve his visa to come to New York. Considering how desperate John Kerry is not to spoil the nuclear mood music with Tehran, the department probably will.

Diss: On Friday, Vladimir Putin called President Obama to discuss a resolution to the crisis in Ukraine. The Russian president "drew Barack Obama's attention to continued rampage of extremists who are committing acts of intimidation towards peaceful residents," according to the Kremlin, which, as in Soviet days, no longer bothers distinguishing diplomatic communiqués from crass propaganda.Enlarge Image

President Jimmy Carter, announcing an agreement to release Americans held hostage in Iran on Jan. 19, 1981. Associated Press

Mr. Kerry was immediately dispatched to Paris to meet with Sergei Lavrov, his Russian counterpart. Mr. Lavrov—who knows a one-for-me, one-for-you, one-for-me deal when he sees it—is hinting that Russia will graciously not invade Ukraine provided Washington and Moscow shove "constitutional reforms" favorable to the Kremlin down Kiev's throat. And regarding the invasion that brought the crisis about: "Mr. Kerry on Sunday didn't mention Crimea during his remarks," reports The Wall Street Journal, "giving the impression that the U.S. has largely given up reversing the region's absorption into Russia."

Diss: "If your image is feebleness, it doesn't pay in the world," Moshe Ya'alon, Israel's defense minister, said last month at Tel Aviv University. "At some stage, the United States entered into negotiations with them [the Iranians], and unhappily, when it comes to negotiating at a Persian bazaar, the Iranians were better."

The administration later demanded an apology from Mr. Ya'alon, which he dutifully delivered. But this isn't the first time he's dissed the administration. In January, he called Mr. Kerry"obsessive and messianic," adding that "the only thing that can save us is if Kerry wins the Nobel Prize and leaves us alone."

Diss: "It seems to me that some kind of joker wrote the U.S. president's order ". That was what Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin tweeted after learning last month that the Obama administration had sanctioned him for his role in the invasion of Ukraine.

Gotta love the "".

Diss: In March, Iranian Gen. Masoud Jazayeri offered his view of Mr. Obama's threat to use military force against Iran if negotiations fail. "The low-IQ U.S. President and his country's Secretary of State John Kerry speak of the effectiveness of 'the U.S. options on the table' on Iran while this phrase is mocked at and has become a joke among the Iranian nation, especially the children."

Diss: In late December, Mr. Obama warned Congress that he would veto legislation to impose new sanctions on Iran if the Islamic Republic violated its nuclear commitments. It was essential, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said, to do nothing that "will undermine our efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution."

A few weeks later, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif laid a wreath at the tomb of Imad Mughniyeh, mastermind of the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, the 1985 hijacking of TWA 847 and countless other acts of international terrorism. Apparently Mr. Zarif didn't much fear undermining efforts to achieve a peaceful resolution.

Diss: In December, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, under fire for a corruption scandal, unleashed a media campaign to impugn U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone as a member of a dark conspiracy to destabilize the government in Ankara. This is the same Mr. Erdogan whose regime Mr. Ricciardone praised for "great development in democratic structure." It's also the same Mr. Erdogan about whom Mr. Obama once said he had formed "bonds of trust."

Diss: "Rather than challenging the Syrian and Iranian governments, some of our Western partners have refused to take much-needed action against them," warned Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the U.K. late last year. "The foreign policy choices being made in some Western capitals risk the stability of the region and, potentially, the security of the whole Arab world. This means the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has no choice but to become more assertive in international affairs."

This would have been a diss were it whispered in the corridor of a foreign chancellery. The ambassador published it as an op-ed in the New York Times. NYT +0.70%

All this in just the past four months. And all so reminiscent of the contempt the world showed for Jimmy Carter in the waning days of his failed presidency. The trouble for us is that the current presidency has more than 1,000 days to go.

I was wrong about diss. It's a fine word. It means diss-respect. And connotes diss-may. And diss-honor. And diss-aster.

I heard that new Health Secretary has private sector experience. Turns out it was giving money away at private foundations.-----------------------------

A graduate of Harvard University and Oxford University as well as a former Rhodes Scholar, Burwell also was President Bill Clinton’s deputy chief of staff. Before joining the Clinton White House she was chief of staff to then-Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin.

After leaving Washington, Burwell worked in philanthropy. She ran the global development program at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In January, 2012 she was named president of the Wal-Mart Foundation, which gave $959 million in cash and in-kind contributions worldwide in 2011, according to its website. She held the job until Obama chose her for OMB in March, 2013.

Her White House connections are deep. National Security Adviser Susan Rice helped introduce Burwell to her husband, lawyer Stephen Burwell, with whom she has two children. The two women first met as Rhodes Scholars at Oxford University. Housing and Urban Development Secretary Shaun Donovan was a dormitory mate at Harvard.

When Obama nominated Burwell last year as his budget director, she went before the Senate as Obama and Republicans were squaring off in another battle: raising the federal debt limit and dealing with the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration. She was confirmed on a 96-0 vote.

Don't get me wrong, Sylvia Mathews Burwell is a Rhodes Scholar level trash sorter. And we believe her about what she decided was important and not important in what they found, took, hid and discarded from Vince Foster's office - the day that he died.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/26/us/no-intention-to-question-first-lady.htmlMembers questioned Sylvia Mathews, a former White House aide, in laborious detail about what she had found in Mr. Foster's garbage on the night he died. Other than a few routine documents, the garbage contained nothing that shed light on Mr. Foster's thinking, said Ms. Mathews, who is now chief of staff at the Treasury Department.

Republicans on the committee found it significant, however, that Ms. Mathews had also managed to retrieve a special bag of garbage containing classified and sensitive papers that was usually destroyed by the Secret Service. The contents of that bag were never examined by anyone to see if Mr. Foster had left anything in it that might shed light on his state of mind.

Ms. Mathews said that she got the bag from the Secret Service and began looking briefly through it, when she discovered that it contained all of the classified garbage from the West Wing. Concerned about a possible security breach, she sought Mr. Nussbaum's opinion about whether to continue looking through it. She said she was told by Mr. Nussbaum that since Mr. Foster did not have a classified garbage bin in his office, it was doubtful that there would be anything from Mr. Foster in the bag. Therefore, she said, Mr. Nussbaum told her to return the bag unexamined to the Secret Service to be disposed.

The White House said after the hearing that a Secret Service agent on detail that evening said Mr. Nussbaum had been mistaken and that in fact there had been a special classified garbage bin, or "burn bag," in Mr. Foster's office. But the agent also said Mr. Foster's classified bin had never been emptied into the bag that Ms. Mathews had retrieved.